Self Help Radio 092614: Scenes

& now! A behind-the-scenes look at Self Help Radio!

Hunh.  It's pretty much as expected: a dude playing songs from CD & a computer, occasionally pulling a microphone down & talking to it.  The programmer's booth sort of clean, but also sort of grimy.  Complete lack of charisma evident in the deejay - & furthermore, he has a face for radio.  Well.  That was exciting.

But hey!  This week's show (which was about scenes) is now available at the Self Help Radio website!  You don't have to make a scene or anything.  All the songs I played are listed below.

As always, thanks for listening!

(part one)

"That Is The Scene" Baskervilles _Baskervilles_
"At The Scene" The Dave Clark Five _The Best Of The Dave Clark Five_
"Street Scene" Leon Mitchison _Cold Heat: Heavy Funk Rarities, Vol. 1: 1968-1974_

"The Breaking Up Scene" Honeybus _She Flies Like A Bird: The Anthology_
"Same Old Scene" Roxy Music _The Thrill Of It All_
"Crush The Scene" Tullycraft _The Singles_
"Making The Nature Scene" Sonic Youth _Confusion Is Sex_

"Hey Scenesters!" The Cribs _New Fellas_
"That Girl, That Scene" Frankie & The Heartstrings _The Days Run Away_
"This Scene Is Happening" Liquid Faeries _La-Di-Da...  So Far..._
"Hipsters, Scenesters, Teenstars & Fakers" Amy Linton & Stewart Anderson _Knowing We Was Right From Da Start_

"Freak Scene" Dinosaur Jr _Bug_
"Shirt Scene" Marc Riley With The Creepers _Shadow Figure 12"_
"Queen Of The Scene" Go-Kart Mozart _On The Hot Dog Streets_

(part two)

"Scenes" Tania Rivas _Scenes_
"The Recognition Scene" The Mountain Goats _Sweden_
"Leave The Scene Behind" The Wave Pictures _Instant Coffee Baby_

"No. 1 Hippie On The Village Scene" The Fifth Estate _Ding! Dong! The Witch Is Back!_
"The Contemporary Scene" Mood Six _A Matter Of!_
"Scream (Till You Make The Scene)" Stephin Merritt _Obscurities_
"Fight Scene" The Kamalas _The Kamalas_

"Music Scene" The Fall _Live At The Witch Trails_
"What's That Scene" Male Bonding _Endless Now_
"On The Scene" The Friggs _Rock Candy_
"Domestic Scene" The Radio Dept. _Clinging To A Scheme_

"The Crying Scene" Aztec Camera _Stray_
"I Want A New Scene" Mitch Easter _Dynamico_
"This Scene Is Dead" We Are Scientists _With Love & Squalor_

Whither Scenes?

I feel like I've told this story before.  I've never been part of any "scene."  At best, I've been involved at some radio stations but never with the well-liked group at the center.  I did what work I could, but mostly I worked alone, & that's still true.

Never part of the scene, never one of the cool kids.

In actuality, I would never have been part of any of the cliques in high school because not only was I a fat nerd, but also I naturally gravitated toward loner status.  So I didn't even really have any nerd friends.  It's no surprise that the only people I am in communication with from my high school is a fellow who moved to Austin after ninth grade (where we reconnected in my college years) & a friend who was in the grade above me, another loner who I rarely saw at school.  My best friend in high school went to a different school in a different city; we met because of (nerds) our comic book collections.

(My loner status did keep the bullies away from me.  Attached to nothing & no-one, I wasn't much fun to pick on.)

Flash forward to sometime in 1994 or 1995.  A pretty girl who did a show at my first radio station, & who was obviously well-liked, was chatting with me about another girl at the radio station, who was involved in management, but was unattractive & overweight.  The unattractive girl had just started dating someone, a kind of clumsy, & yes, overweight, fellow, who was not well-liked.  I didn't know either of them very well.

The pretty girl said to me, "Isn't it hilarious that they're dating each other?"

I didn't get the joke.  Was something wrong with either or both of them?

"No," she said.  "She's so awful & he's so awful.  & they're dating!"

I asked for more clarification, & the pretty girl got more specific: she was referring to their weight & their general unattractiveness.  & then something hit me.

"Oh no!" I said out loud.  "I've become one of the cool kids!"

The pretty girl didn't know what I meant, so I explained: I used to be the sort of person that people like her talked about behind my back, & now I was talking about people like me behind their backs!

She quickly backpedaled, & tried to explain that she meant that they were not nice people, or kind people, or anything besides their physical unattractiveness, but I was lost in a kind of daze.  I never thought that I'd be on the other side of that world.

& I really never would - the pretty girl & I never became friends, & in fact, while I remember her first name (& not her last name), she probably doesn't remember me at all.  & she wasn't part of a scene, anyway, so this story is only peripherally related to the show this week.

Which is on tomorrow from 7am till 9am.  You can hear it live in Lexington at 88.1 on the fm dial, & live anywhere at wrfl dot fm on the computer dial.  I'll put the show up later that day on the Self Help Radio website like I do, in case you're not up early.  Because the sleeping-in scene is the one I wish I belonged to these days.

Spleen Venting

The spleen is an organ.  It's on the left side of your body, protected by the ribs.  It's about as big as your fist.  I've read that it's "soft & red."  Let me ask my wife, the anatomist.  "What color is the spleen?" U ask here.  She says it's "burgundy-pinkish."  Then she adds, "It's a little purple."

The Word Detective talks about the phrase "vent one's spleen" here.  He explains, "The spleen’s job is to act as a sort of filter for the blood, but in medieval times, when each bodily organ was thought to be the home of one emotion or another, the spleen was regarded as the seat of melancholy. There was apparently a brief period later on when the spleen was suspected, improbably, of supplying humor & good cheer, but by the late 16th century it was decided that the spleen was the source of rage and ill-temper. Thus 'spleen' has for several centuries been a metaphor for 'anger,' 'resentment' & general crankiness."

I wish this blog had a more personal slant to it - I suppose it could - but maybe I'm not the entirely confessional type that I used to be, both on my radio show & on the internet.  (I used to write crazy confessional stuff on the usenet.)  I recently had an interaction with a local business that didn't quite make my blood boil, but irked me enough to write them about.

I'll speak in generalities.  I had a bad experience at the local business.  I contacted the local business by email that night, explaining the situation.  In the email, I didn't ask for anything.  I simply told the story of the shabby treatment I received & mentioned that I shopped there a lot.

I waited a week for a response.  The response from the local business, while containing something of an apology, completely belittled my experience while insisting that my email could in fact be a "teaching moment" for its employees.

I wrote back & told them that I wouldn't be patronizing the local business anymore.

It's so interesting - a franchise of a corporation would have written the most slavishly apologetic response possible.  They would have detailed the employee code of conduct & let me know how the employee involved in my bad experience would be disciplined.  They would have responded to my email within a business day & would have attempted some kind of recompense for my experience.

But this local business?  The best they could manage was a tepid apology & a shrug of the shoulders in a response as warm as a form letter.  It was astonishing.

You know, I've had issues with places before - I did go into detail on this very blog about a horrible experience with an airline a few years back.  But for some reason, I don't think much would be accomplished with venting my spleen about this local business in this manner.  I don't think it will change anything & I suppose I'm not as angry - I just feel that I shouldn't help support the place any more.

The biggest surprise is that my wife used to really love the place.  But apparently she's had bad experiences there, too.  She remarkably has agreed with my - well, it sounds like a boycott, but really it's just an ignoring - of the place.

Sorry to be vague.  Not enough spleen to vent, I guess.

Moments On Twitter

I've recently started "live tweeting" my show, which means (& who knows if I'm even using the phrase "live tweet" correctly) that I say on Twitter what I am playing when I do my show as I am playing it.  Usually it's with the hashtag "nowplaying" & I mention RFL's Twitter account (< a href="http://www.twitter.com/WRFL">@WRFL
) & the web page, where you can listen live: Superego.  They're crazy funny, & sharp as hell, as their bits are all improvised.  Well, after I played it, I got a note that they were following my Twitter account!  Gosh!  The proof is above.
They did soon think better of it, however, & unfollowed me almost right away, & I can't blame them, I'm nothing compared to them.  But it was fun to think they noticed me for a second!

Two of the Superegotists (do they call themselves that?) did favorite my tweet later.  That was nice.

Go listen to their podcast!  There's a new one right now, & it's great!  gosuperego.com!

Dead & Dying Businesses

I am strangely moved & fascinated by businesses that no longer exist - specifically ones that were seemingly ubiquitous in my childhood.  One of those was a small five-&-dime store called TG&Y.  From the time I was about 9 till the time I was about 14, my family lived in an apartment complex right next to a shopping center called Ridgewood (you can see the current businesses that occupy the place here.  To say that I was in a store or walking through the parking lot of the shopping center most days of that time would not be an exaggeration - a branch of the public library was there, as was a Minyard's supermarket, & a dollar movie theater.  & one of the stores closest to us - & frankly, easiest to shoplift from - was the TG&Y.

I can almost walk through it in my mind.  If I walked in today, I would know exactly where the toy section was.  I bought - or my mother bought for me - many Star Wars figures & accessories there.  & I stole a few more.

After we moved, I didn't find myself at that shopping center very often, & soon enough both the Minyard's & the TG&Y were gone.  The Wikipedia has a handy list of "defunct retail companies of the United States, & the sad story of TG&Y's demise can be read at the link above.  A surprise - Minyard's is not on there!  Apparently there are 13 stores left in the Dallas area!

I guess nothing lasts forever.  Even giant mainstays like K-Mart & Sears are disappearing, & luckily there are those chronicling their demise.  I am not sad about a business dying - but it does affect me in a strange way, like I have recently watched an empty office building bulldozed in my neighborhood.  There are a few photos of it somewhere on my Tumblr blog.  I wish I could've gotten some of the photos on this website featuring "dead & dying K-Mart stores."

There's a K-Mart nearby - maybe I'll go have a look around.  But I better hurry!  It looks like they're going the way of the ol' TG&Y.

Self Help Radio 091914: One Way

I had a radio show yesterday (sorry, I went out of town & couldn't post this immediately afterwards) with the theme "one way."  I still don't know how or why that became the theme.  But I think it turned out pretty well.  I talked to a self-help guru who believes he's discovered the one way to happiness, & I talked to a doctor who believes he's found the one way to men's health, & I talked to two civil engineers who believe that Lexington would benefit from the city having only one way streets.  All this, plus music, including a new song Tania & Juan wrote for the show, plus a report from our man in Hollywood, Mark Miller.  I guess the show went one way, & I'm glad it did.

Listen to it now!  Self Help Radio Dot Net!  The songs I played are listed below!  I think I'm going the wrong way!  Oh no!

Thanks for listening!

(part one)

"One Way" Tania & Juan _One Way_
"One Way Love" Allison Weiss _Say What You Mean_
"One Way Or Another" Blondie _Eat To The Beat_

"(I'm Walking Down) A One Way Street" Guy Mitchell _The Very Best Of Guy Mitchell_
"One Way Street" Miki Smith _Trouble Doll_
"Walking Up A One Way Street" Willie Tee _Teasin' You_
"One Way Street" Sharon Tandy _You Gotta Believe It's... Sharon Tandy_
"One Way Street" The Dirty Burds _Hellbound Honeys, Vol. 1_

"One Way Ticket Home" Phil Ochs _Greatest Hits_
"One Way Ticket" Bobby Crown & The Kapers _Rockabilly Rarities, Vol. 1_
"One Way Ticket" The Nerves _One Way Ticket_
"One Way Trigger" The Strokes _Comedown Machine_

"Love Can't Be A One Way Deal" The Rev-Lons _Boy Trouble: Garpax Girls_
"One Way Love" The Innocents _One Way Love 7"_

(part two)

"One Way Love" The Damned _Don't Cry Wolf 7"_
"One Way Love" The Undertones _The Undertones_
"One Way Love" The James Hunter Six _Minute By Minute_

"One Way Out" Elmore James _The Sky Is Crying: The History Of Elmore James_
"One Way Out" Martha & The Vandellas _Watchout!_
"One Way Bus" New Birth _New Birth_
"One Way" Mighty Mighty _A Band From Birmingham_

"One Way Mind" John Cunningham _Becket House_
"One Way Or The Other" Chumbawamba _Readymades_
"One Way Track" Bill Nelson _Noise Candy, Vol. 1: Old Man Future Blows The Blues_
"One Way Spit" Debris _Soul Jazz Records Presents PUNK 45: Sick On You! One Way Spit! After The Love & Before The Revolution, Vol. 3: Proto-Punk 1969-77_

"One Way Kisses" The 4 Knights _Jivin' & Smoothin'_
"One Way Rider" Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash _Rockabilly Blues_

Whither One Way?

Who knows?  The show is happening tomorrow morning from 7 to 9am on 88.1 fm WRFL, & you can listen online at werful dot fm.  I'll also live tweet like I do nowadays on my the SHR Twitter account.

But I might not be able to put the show up on the Self Help Radio website because I'm going up to Cincinnati for Oktoberfest Zinzinnati.  Specifically, the wife wants to see the Running Of The Wieners.  Because they're hounds & they're cute.

I have to ask, though - why do they hold Oktoberfest in September?  Is that just common here?  I guess I never paid attention to Oktoberfest when in Texas.  But just checking, it turns out that Fredericksburg has its Oktoberfest in October.

So maybe it has something to do with climate.  Anyway, I apologize for not getting the show up in time.  If only they had Oktoberfest in October…

Preface To One Way: No, I'm NOT Running Out Of Themes!

Why would you think that?  Is it because of that Bob Dylan show?  He would never do a show with a theme like "one way"!  He picked general themes like "cars" or "homes" or "family" or "Bob Dylan"!  Why can't Self Help Radio be like that?  Why not do a show about something that's tangible, that's a thing, that makes some kind of sense, that there are songs that we will know about & you will have to play?

Seriously, dude.  "One Way"?  All I can think about is that Blondie song.  That's it.

What just happened?  I started out with one voice & ended up with another.  I think I liked the complainer's voice better than my own explainer voice.  Anyway, it doesn't matter - no one really cares what theme I pick & very rarely is anyone excited by a theme.  Which is cool - I don't mind the anonymity.

One thing that does happen from time-to-time is that a person will call & say, "I hear you're looking for songs about [today's theme]."  I am happy when someone makes suggestions or requests a song, but it's weird to think that they'd be listening to a radio show & think, "That deejay is doing a show about [whatever subject], but of course they wouldn't have brought enough music about [whatever subject] to fill their allotted two hours, but, luckily, hey!  Me to the rescue!"

I'm never insulted or anything, but I wonder if that's happened enough to the average RFL listener that they've heard a deejay say, "I wanted to do a show about [something], but I don't have enough songs!"

It's possible.  It's just not something I'd ever do!

I didn't get a chance to do this two posts ago...

One of my favorite boring bookkeeping events passed & I barely noted it: the 1900th post on this blog!

You're not paying attention anyway, but I like to do this:

I started this blog on September 12, 2006.  Holy fuck, that's eight years ago!

I reached 100 posts on Match 7, 2007.
I reached 200 posts on August 13, 2007.
I reached 300 posts on January 11, 2008.
I reached 400 posts on May 29, 2008.
I reached 500 posts on October 19, 2008.
I reached 600 posts on April 2, 2009.
I reached 700 posts on October 4. 2009.
I reached 800 posts on May 2, 2010.
I reached 900 posts on July 30, 2010.
I reached 1000 posts on January 4, 2011.
I reached 1100 posts on May 30, 2011.
I reached 1200 posts on October 23, 2011.
I reached 1300 posts on Mach 3, 2012.
I reached 1400 posts on July 30, 2012.
I reached 1500 posts on December 23, 2012.
I reached 1600 posts on April 23, 2013.
I reached 1700 posts on November 22, 2013.
I reached 1800 posts on April 21, 2014.
I reached 1900 posts on September 12, 2014.

If you stumble through this blog - & please don't, it's embarrassing for me - you'll find that I do a celebratory "anniversary post" most of the time.  But you'll notice it's usually wrong - the blog entry entitled "The Legendary 1000th Post," for example, happened on December 14, 2010 (when it was a not-very-legendary 994th post), instead of six posts later.  There's a reason for that: I'm dumb.

Blogger very handily tells you the number of posts you've published.  It also notes when you start a post (a "draft") & then saves it if you don't finish or if you forget about it.

I'm not a "draft" writing kind of guy.  I wish I were - boy, I'd love to be able to rewrite some of my crap to make it better - but if I write something, & don't finish it, & close the window on the computer, I'll probably not return to it.  I'll almost certainly open another window & write something new.

I obviously have done this several times on this blog.  For a long time, I had six or so drafts in my draft folder, which Blogger counted toward my total.  I deleted them.  Most of them were blank pages anyway.  Now I can just go look at every hundredth post from the beginning, but back then - well, I'm dumb.  I trusted the number & I counted backwards.

Let me repeat that: I counted backwards.

I am fascinated about the time periods represented here.  From October 2002 to May 2008, Self Help Radio was on KOOP in Austin.  From May 2008 till June 2009, it existed as a podcast.  From July 2009 to June 2010, it was on WMUL in Huntington.  From August 2010 till present (excepting Spring of this year) it has been on WRFL in Lexington.  So that total is:

KOOP: five years, eight months
WMUL: eleven months
WRFL: three years, eleven months
Podcast: one year, seven months (at different times)

Does that add up to eleven years, eleven months?  Because that's hold long I've been doing Self Help Radio!

(Actually, it adds up to 12 years, one month, because I counted a couple of months, like May of 2008 & January of this year, when I have half in one place, half another.)

(I'm still celebrating my twelve anniversary next month.)

High School Daze

A friend with whom went to high school had a birthday today & we texted back & forth all up & down memory lane.  I made a joke about high school, which led us to reminiscing about those awful days.  We went to a school called South Garland High in Garland, Texas.  Our school team was the colonels, we had a modified Confederate flag as our flag (as seen above), & our slogan was "the South shall rise again!"  After my graduation, a friend attended but didn't go to South Garland asked me, "Does your school know the South lost the war?"

For both my birthday friend & myself, this seemed normal (as normal as anything in high school), but my friend didn't remember something specific I recalled: there was a giant mural in the cafeteria of a Southern plantation.  Since he couldn't bring it to mind, I looked around for evidence online.

I found, archived at the University of North Texas, a book called "School Spirit or School Hate: The
Confederate Battle Flag, Texas High Schools, and Memory, 1953-2002" by
Perry Dirickson, which, you may notice, kind of rhymes with my name.  You can see the pages I'm about to quote here.

I warn you: the book is badly written.  I have copied it verbatim, but did feel the need to note when there were egregious grammar mistakes.  Some of the commentary feels forced & awkward, but the historical part of it is eye-opening.

At South Garland High School, the students chose the Colonels & the Confederate flag because of the Civil War centennial.  The school opened in the fall of 1964.  The year before, students who would attend the school voted for the Colonels as mascot & adopted an Old South theme.  South Garland was located at the southern edge of Garland's residential area at the time.  There were few houses; mostly cotton fields surrounded the school.  This added to the Old South feel of the school.  South Garland High School released the first edition of the school newspaper on Friday, October 2, 1964, with the name "Plantation News."  In the paper, the cartoon "Colonel's Plantation" ran, displaying the paternalism implied by the school's mascot.  The cartoon presented three characters: the Colonel, Rastus, & Liza.  Liza & Rastus were portrayed as poor whites in tattered clothing whom [sic] used broken English.  The Colonel dressed in an all-white suit with a black tie & spoke impeccable English.  This reinforced the romantic view of the Old South & the class superiority implied by the mascot name of Colonels.

Other traditions reinforced the Old South theme.  The students named the drill team, Southern Belles.  The cheering section, underclassmen drill team members, named itself the Dixie Darlings, & the fight song played to the tune of "Dixie."  Another tradition that the students tried to initiate, although it did not last, was a fundraiser to earn money for student activities.  The fundraiser was a slave auction. The slaves were members of the drill team who sold themselves to male students for a day for whatever the buy [sic] wanted, such as washing his car.  The girls dressed in sackcloth, wore their hair in dog-ears, donned a beanie or cowboy hat, & wore no make-up with mismatched shoes.  The Clothes [sic] worn by the "slaves" were eerily similar to the clothes of actual slaves.  To add to the Old South theme, the school painted a plantation mural in the cafeteria with a generic white-columned mansion surrounded by fields of cotton devoid of any black slaves working the fields.  The omission of workers in the mural portrayed an understanding the workers in the field were black slaves. By leaving them out, the administration was saying in a nice way that black slaves were not important & as an extension, blacks were not important as well.

South Garland students not only developed traditions based on the Old South, they also adopted the Confederate flag as their school's symbol & school flag.  Before 1967, the school used a Confederate battle flag as its school flag.  In the fall of 1967, the 1966 seniors presented the school a gift, the South Garland flag, which was the official Colonel flag.  The flag's design included the school's crest in the flag's center as well as "S" & "G" for South Garland on the outer part of the flag.  The school called its crest the "libertas," liberty in Latin, the Garland family motto,  The "libertas" had the colonel's head on top of a shield with crossed sabers.  On the shield, the Garland family crest appeared in the upper left quadrant.  The Confederate flag was in the upper right corner.  In the lower left quadrant, the golden bugle symbolized class "spirit [sic] de corps" & aggressiveness in the future.  The torch of knowledge centered by live oak & olive branches borrowed from the Great Seal of the State of Texas.  The "S" for South was to the left of the "lbertas" & the "G" to the right.  This would remain the South Garland flag until 1991. The South Garland students viewed the flag as their flag.  The design of the flag incorporated the Confederate battle flag, but the students saw the banner as their flag & claimed pointed [sic] out that this standard was not the Confederate battle flag.  The flag's inclusion of the South Garland High's crest & the "S" & "G" separated it from the association with the Confederate battle flag in the minds of students.

I remember in the 1990s my family members griping about how the NAACP was going to sue the school & replace the flag.  ("It's not racist, it's tradition!")  It turns out the school district did it themselves (although doubtless there were some who may well have filed a lawsuit).  According to Wikipedia, "the Garland Independent School Board voted 6 to 1 at its August 1, 1991, meeting, to discontinue use of the altered Confederate flag as the school flag & to also change the color of the mascot's uniform from gray to blue & red."  The mural, presumably, is still there.  The Wikipedia adds, "Today many students still use the Confederate flag to symbolize the school's 'southern culture' with little to no backlash from students or parents. However, South Garland High School & the GISD refuse to recognize the flag. The school still uses the song 'Dixie' as the school's fight song to this day."

My friend, who I hope doesn't mind me sharing this, texted something about those years that may explain why we weren't as horrified when we were students as I imagine you are reading this.  He said, "I just recall high school as being sort of frightening & overwhelming at times & mind-numbingly tedious at other times.  I had no cultural reference points or socialization to prepare me for it."

Me neither.

Self Help Radio 091214: Magazines

Stop the presses!  A radio show about magazines?!?  This will take a special double issue!

Actually, it's mainly the same old thing - lots of songs about magazines, me talking too much, but also interviews with a Harvard professor & a special announcement from my spiritual advisor, the Rev. Dr. Howard Gently.  It's too much!  You'll need a subscription!

Please listen now at the Self Help Radio website.  Pay attention to username/password stuff.  What I played is below.

PS This is the 1900th posting on this dumb blog.  No big deal.

Thanks for listening!

(part one)

"Magazines" Teresa Brewer _The Ultimate Collection_
"Movie Magazines" The Four Cal-Quettes _Movie Magazines_
"Little Girl In A Magazine" Jerry Channing _Little Girl In A Magazine_

"Magazine Woman" Gary Walker & The Rain _Magazine Woman_
"Magazine Lady" Spider John Koerner & Willie Murphy _Forever Changing: The Golden Age Of Elektra Records 1963-1973_
"Letters To Magazines" Paul F. Tompkins _Impersonal_
"Girl In A Magazine" The Brains _The Brains_

"Cover Of The Rolling Stone" R. Stevie Moore _Great Test Hits_
"Dream Magazine" Svensk _Piccadilly Sunshine # 1: British Pop Psych & Other Flavours 1965-1970_
"Grit Magazine" Thee American Revolution _Buddha Electrostorm_
"People Who Read People Magazine" Kinky Friedman _Under The Double Ego_

"Centerfold" J. Geils Band _Freeze Frame_
"Skingloss Magazine" Superego _Superego, Volume 3, Episode 12_
"Magazines" Tania & Juan _Magazine_

(part two)

"Letter To A Fanzine" Great Plains _Length Of Growth 1981-1989_
"Teen Magazines" Kyle Hall _Feelin' Weird_
"Magazine Theory" Darren Hanlon _Early Days_

"Girl In A Magazine" J Church _Camels, Spilled Corona, & The Sound Of Mariachi Bands_
"Star Magazine" Gigantaur _Gigantaur E.P._
"Resolve (The Complete New Testament In The Form Of A Teen Magazine)" Eugene Mirman _En Garde, Society!_

"Surfing Magazines" The Go-Betweens _The Friends Of Rachel Worth_
"Dirty Magazines" Jonas Crenshaw _Colossal Failure_
"Magazines" The Hold Steady _Stay Positive_
"Magazine" The Proper Ornaments _Wooden Head_

"Magazine" Yeh Deadlies _Magazine 7"_
"Autograph Magazine" Todd Barry _Falling Off The Bone_
"I Dreamed You In Magazines" Fred Thomas _Kuma_

Whither Magazines?

This was a hard show to put together - there aren't really all that many songs about magazines!  I am glad at this point that I spend a little bit of time listening to new stuff that people put on their Bandcamp pages.  I'm happy to preview their stuff & support them & am glad it's so easy there.

(By the way, isn't it amazing how much simpler those guys made it vs. how hard it used to be to listen to stuff on Myspace?  No wonder the latter place is a ghost town.)

I should have enough music to fill the show plus I have a couple of interviews.  It's always fun to be challenged for a show - two hours is sometimes a lot of time to fill for a particular theme!

The show will be on tomorrow morning from 7 to 9 am on 88.1 fm in Lexington.  You can listen to the show & follow along at the WRFL web site & also I have gotten into the habit of live tweeting what I'm playing on my Twitter page.

Later that day, I'll put the show up in its entirety on the Self Help Radio web site.

I hope you listen!

Preface To Magazines: Unsubscribe

I don't subscribe to many magazines anymore.  Just one, actually.  My wife has a subscription to a gossip-style magazine, but it was a gift from a friend, who hoped it would help her catch up on popular culture.  It doesn't.  She looks at the pictures & then asks me, "Who is this?  Why is this person in this magazine?"

I used to subscribe to a particular music magazine - it's probably the best one out there, although I don't know anymore - it's been a few years, since I left Austin in fact - & I enjoyed reading it, but it was weird - every feature article extolled the featured artist in such a way that I felt, if I didn't like the artist, that something was wrong with me.  Also, every third issue had a Beatle or the Beatles on the cover.  That was like saying to me, "You're old.  That's why you get this magazine."

I also used to subscribe to a left-wing/progressive news magazine.  I felt very guilty unsubscribing, because I think they do good work.  I just couldn't read it anymore.  Every story was a story of corruption & defeat.  Every truth unearthed just showed that the bad people had all the money, controlled everything, & were going to destroy the world, their comfort existing at the expense of everyone else.  The people who run the magazine however maintain a crazy optimism, in spite of the overwhelming evidence that it doesn't fucking matter - the bad people are winning.  Again, I admire their work, their courage, their spirit - it just got to be too much for me to read the depressing stories of defeat, with that little paragraph of hope at the end.  Poor, tortured hope.

The magazine I currently subscribe to is a little more cynical, but I still don't read most of it anymore.  I can't exactly say why.  I like the magazine.  It's just piling up on the table by the front door, though.

I always wanted to make my own magazine - or any kind of zine, really - but as I get older, I find I have less & less to say.  This blog, of course, is evidence of that.

A Song From Under The Floorboards

One of my silly rules about my show is that the theme can't be reflected by the name of the band or the album a song is from - so that means that my show this week, about magazines, won't feature any songs by Magazine, who unwisely chose not to write a song about magazines.  (Maybe their name is in reference to a different kind of magazine?)  But that doesn't stop me from playing them on this blog - here's one of their best songs performed live:

Yawp

I need to make a list of important lessons one stumbles upon in life that end up making life better.  The funny thing about lessons - teaching, really - is that if you're not interested in what's being taught, or you're not interested in whoever's trying to teach you, you're probably not going to learn.

I'm sure this is rudimentary pedagogy, but I am thinking also that if one comes from an environment where learning isn't valued - where the value is instead on some sense or kind of authority - that also hurts the process of learning.

& I'm not necessarily talking about facts here, although sometimes one's attitude can affect how one absorbs facts.  One of my relatives, for example, once said, "Why are they always talking about the Civil War? It happened a long time ago. It doesn't have anything to do with us now."  Believing that, obviously, makes one less inclined to learn about the Civil War.

What I'm talking about is this: I remember, it must've been early in my college career, this moment when I found out how powerful it was to say, "I don't know."

Admitting that I didn't know something wasn't a mark of weakness; it instead seemed a sign of confidence & self-knowledge.

& it did have something to do with the people - I was around people who were different from my family.

My family, in general, knows a lot of stuff.  As much as your average family that knows stuff.  But my family believes it knows more stuff than it actually knows.  What's more, it has developed a kind of behavioral mechanism - related, somewhat, to stubbornness, also a family trait - which will assert with terrifying confidence that what any member of the family says, even though you know it's wrong, is in fact right.

Here's an example.  Once I was at my sister's house, listening to the band Squeeze.  (This was a long time ago.)  She said, "I like this song, but I like the original."  I told her it was the original.  She said it wasn't.  I showed her the album, which listed the band members, & then the LP, which listed the writing credits.  She shrugged.  She said, "Someone else did a version of this, & it's better."

This was pretty soon after the album had been released.  But no amount of evidence could convince her that what she knew was right was incorrect.

It didn't just have to happen in arguments.  It could just be a reaction.  My little brother might say to me, "You didn't know that!" & I would respond, almost reflexively, "I did so!"

Yes, I developed that mechanism, too.  It came in handy, many times - there are times when, with sheer force of will, you can convince someone they're wrong.  Or at the very least throw what they believe into doubt.  I remember a long argument about evolution where I completely misunderstood the basics & yet a smarter friend, who was studying biology, couldn't convince me.  I'm not sure she left the argument as firmly convinced as she began it.  (Later on, I apologized for being so stupid about the whole deal.)

But at some point, I remember the pressure being off in regard to subjects & things about which I honestly had no knowledge, just by saying, "No, I don't know that."  It will let the person have the pleasure of discussing something they do in fact know many things about, or it will reveal that they didn't really know much either.

& what follows that lesson is this one: you don't have to have an opinion about everything.

Oh god!  What a liberating concept!

Self Help Radio 090514: Disco

A radio show about disco, but featuring very little actual disco.  Yeah, that sounds like the sort of show Self Help Radio would do.

In addition to the great music played (listed below), the show had lots of human talking guests.  I interviewed David Fruchter, who used to bartend at Studio 54; I interviewed Nick Ramirez, who has protested disco for decades; & I interviewed Nancy Gold & Mary Storm, co-discoverers of the element disconium.  & of course Mark Miller reported about Hollywood, & Tania wrote us another lovely song.

It's all available for your lighted dance floor & mirror ball at the Self Help Radio website.  Please pay attention to password/username info while you're there.

Thanks for listening!  I have to take off these boogie shoes now.  They're killing me.

(The show is in two parts at the website; below is what's in the two parts.)

(part one)

"Discotheque" Bad Dream Fancy Dress _Choirboys Gas_
"Freestyle Disco" S.I. Futures _The Mission Statement_

"Disco's Dead" The Bags _All Bagged Up '77-'80_
"Smash The Discos" The Business _Punk & Nasty_
"Disco Pope" The Prats _Rough Trade Shops Post Punk 01_
"Disco Romance" UK Decay _The Black Cat EP_
"Disco Hotline" National Lampoon _That's Not Funny, That's Sick!_
"Disco Man" The Damned _Eternally Damned_

"Changwah Disco" Chantana _Thai Beat A Go-Go, Vol. 3_
"Disco Clone" Cristina _Mutant Disco_
"How Long Are You Staying?" Bill Joy _The American Song-Poem Anthology: Do You Know The Difference Between Big Wood & Brush?_
"Red Neck Disco" Glenn Sutton _Redneck Country_

"Rock & Roll People In A Disco World" Sparks _Terminal Jive_

(part two)

"Cambia El Disco" Tania Rivas _Cambia El Disco_
"Disco Biscuit" Lung Leg _Maid To Minx_
"Disco" Backfish _It's Emily's_

"The World Is A Disco Ball" Future Bible Heroes _Eternal Youth_
"Shifty Disco Girl" Helen Love _Love & Glitter, Hot Days & Muzik_
"Indie Disco" The Lancashire Hotpots _Pot Sounds_
"At The Indie Disco" The Divine Comedy _Bang Goes The Knighthood_

"Born Disco/Died Heavy Metal" Cornershop _Hold On It Hurts_
"Discoking" The Leslies _Totally Brilliant_
"Panic" The Guild League _Romantic & Square Is Hip & Aware_

"Death Of A Disco Dancer" The Smiths _Strangeways, Here We Come_
"Disco Pop Stars" Altered Images _Pinky Blue_

Whither Disco?

Blah blah blah, it's a show about disco with very little disco, blah blah blah.

One of the things I started doing this spring - in case you haven't noticed - is regularly feature people I know who are far more funny & talented than I am.  So you've regularly heard my friends Russell, David, Mark, & Nick pretend to be "experts" weekly on the show, as well as Tania singing her songs & an occasional appearance from my wife as the monster that lives under the station.  I asked a couple of current RFL deejays - Macy & Maria, who do a show on Sundays from 2 to 4pm - if they'd also like to be experts.  They said yes!  So their "expertise" will be featured on tomorrow's show.  & - spoiler alert - they're great.

It seems pretty obvious to me that my "experts" aren't really.  But I've had a couple of calls that suggest some people who stumble onto the show don't listen carefully enough.  I keep wondering if I should have some sort of disclaimer.  What do you think?

Tomorrow's show is jam-packed with fake experts - plus lots of fun music - so I hope you'll listen.  It's on from 7 to 9am on 88.1 fm in Lexington & online at wrfl dot fm.  I'll archive it later on Self Help Radio web.  Oh boy!

Preface To Disco: Neglectfulness

As I approach - what is it? - nineteen hundred blog posts on this blog of mine - that's a lot - I feel like I am neglecting it a bit.  Part of it is the general feeling, which co-exists with my lack of self-esteem & all-around self-loating, that I have nothing of value to say.  Part of it is that I spent the day (what free time I had) working on the radio show that this blogs exists to support (or whatever).

I am envious of people like Marc Maron, whose podcast I admire, because he does have something to talk about, twice a week, before his interviews.  He returns to themes - he is his most popular subject - & I'm not comfortable being as frank about myself in that manner, although I tried it for a time on some of the shows this spring.  But he still manages, between awkwardly pitching products for his sponsors, to have lively, interesting discussions about ideas & events that I can't really manage.

I wonder if this blog would benefit from small events & ideas that happen throughout my brain at any given moment.  I would probably resist biographical entries that didn't have something like a point or a clumsy punchline - for example, the wife & I just watched (& enjoyed) the first episode of the television show Please Like Me - but instead just have random train-of-thought observations. Like:

Tonight, someone made the comment that Enya never performed live.  She couldn't.  Too many voices.  But she has performed live, says the Wikipedia.  Just never had an actual concert.

That's not that interesting, but it was interesting to me at the time.  & funny!  It reminds of the time Leah at KOOP told me that Bob Marley died of toe cancer.  I thought it was such a dumb idea I bet her five bucks it wasn't true.  It was!  I paid up.

The other night we were walking the dogs & I thought I saw a shape in the sidewalk in front of us.  It was a sweet black lab whose name I later found out was Mandy.  I recognized her because she barks at us from her backyard & I've always wanted to walk up to meet her.  We banged on her owner's door for several minutes (we guessed he was in the bathroom) & finally he opened the door & we asked if she was his.  She was, but she wanted to come with us - three beagles & two sweet humans are better than a cigarette-smoke-filled home!

The next day or so he explained that the dog was not his but his ex-wife's.  He said he didn't really want her but liked having her around.  I got the impression that he would have loved for us to adopt her.

Tonight I thought, "What if he had let her out that night & hoped she went away?  & we ruined his plans?"

She's a sweet dog, & twelve years old.  I hope the situation isn't what I fear.

Would this blog be better with entries like that instead of - well, what does this blog contain, anyway?  What have I written for almost nineteen hundred entries?  I have no idea.  I have no idea.

Twits Tumble

See this?

That's a picture of my dog Ringo.  I take a lot of dumb pictures, a lot of them of my pets, a lot of them when I'm out & about with my pets.  I "archive" them (if you want to use that fancy word) on the Self Help Radio Tumblr site.  Why not on this blog?  Who the hell knows?

See this?

That's something I tweeted.  From my Tweety Account.  I mean, my Twitter account.  I don't spend a lot of time there, since I don't feel all that clever, but I do "live tweet" my shows (I hope I am using that phrase correctly) & let one know when my shows are available on the site.  Usually by linking to this blog.  Oy.

Anyway.  A friend was telling me today how well an old fogey like me uses Social Media.  (I didn't even mention the Facebook page!)  But I'm not really using Social Media all that well.  Mainly I'm clumsy & awkward about it.  Like most things in my life.

But I thought I should mention these other things (all linked of course on the web site).  So it might seem I am using Social Media well.

& not, as it feels, a little antisocially.

Short Sad Monday Poem

I have a cold.
Sore throat & sniffles.
Still I did three hours
on the radio this morning.
It's been raining all day.
I wish I could have slept all day.
My wife says,
"90% of my laundry
is Jazzercise clothes."
My teeth hurt
because I've been sucking cough drops
all the time.
Going to sleep again
after I feed all the animals.
I hope I am well enough
to do Self Help Radio
this week.

Self Help Radio 082914: Indiepop A To Z # 45

Jesse Garon & The Desperadoes

Oh man, forty-five installments of this & I'm only in the letter J.  I might finish the Js next time around - when will that be?  Probably the end of the year.  For now, enjoy all the bands I thought were important or influential or just plain indiepoppy enough to fit between the Jakpot & the Jigsaws (those bands included).

I should say a big thank you to the people at TweeNet whose list of bands forms the basic skeleton of this series.  If I just stuck to what they consider indiepop, I'd be nearly done now.  Alas, I am contrary.

The show is available now at the Self Help Radio website.  Pay attention to password info, if you're going to listen.  The songs I played - in glorious alphabetical order - are below.

Thanks for listening!

(part one)

"Turning Point" The Jakpot _Turning Point EP_
"Not Happy" Jale _Dreamcake_
"Town Called Malice" The Jam _The Gift_

"I Heart Labrador Records" Jam On Bread _A Railcard Adventure_
"Puppet Girl" Wendy James _Now Ain't The Time For Your Tears_
"Skullduggery" James _Stutter_
"Oh, Grateful" James Dean Driving Experience _Clearlake Revisited_
"Vote For Love" Jamie Wednesday _Vote For Love_

"It's A Fine Day" Jane _It's A Fine Day_
"Mourning Glass" Jane From Occupied Europe _Coloursound_
"Sanitized" Jane Pow _Love It Be It!/State_
"Love Has Flown" The Januaries _The Januaries_
"Cut Me Deep" Jasmine Minks _Another Age_

"Looking For Lot 49" The Jazz Butcher _Fishcotheque_

(part two)

"Nothing At All" Jazzateers _Jazzateers_
"Elemental" The Jean-Paul Sartre Experience _The Size Of Food_
"Before I Know" Jenka _Be_
"Driving Into The Sun" The Jeremiahs _Driving Into The Sun EP_

"Ordinary Sleep" Jessamine _Jessamine_
"The Rain Fell Down" Jesse Garon & The Desperadoes _The Rain Fell Down 7"_
"Just Another Fashion Band" The Jessica Fletchers _What Happened To The?_
"Flowers" Jesterbells _Rain Keeps Falling EP 7"_
"Just Like Honey" The Jesus & Mary Chain _Psychocandy_

"Sister Dream" Jesus Couldn't Drum _Ruttling Orange Peel & Blind Lemon Pie_
"Suicide" The Jesus Trip _You Can't Be Loved Forever, Vol. 1_
"Wenn Deutschland Traumt" Jetzt! _Liebe In Grossen Stadten Kassette_
"Snap Me Up" Jim Jiminee _Welcome To Hawaii_
"Camouflage" The Jigsaws _Camouflage 7"_

Which Indiepop A To Z # 45?

Who knows why anyone does anything?  Why a radio show at all?  Isn't radio dying?  What about this thing called "indiepop" (which yesterday I referred to as "obscure")?  Who pays attention?  Does anyone really want to listen to what I think it is?  & in alphabetical order?  What the hell?

So, "whither indiepop a to z number 45" indeed.

I just think it's good music.  I listen to it a lot.  Some of my favorite bands are either square in the genre definition (like the Lucksmiths) or influenced it (like the Smiths).

& it's nice to have a radio show now to share all the silly music I have - indiepop or otherwise.

& by the way - Self Help Radio is on tomorrow morning from 7 to 9am at 88.1 fm on the dial & online at wrfl dot fm.  Yes, it'll be archived at some point in the day.  What, with all this music, do you think I have time to do anything else?

Did this have too many questions in it?  Will anyone answer them?  Or were they rhetorical?  Have I done this before?  Why can't I remember if I did or not?

Preface To Indiepop A To Z # 45: Keep Going, Keep Going

I've had a leisurely week - it's warm & unbearably humid in Lexington so, except for the requisite evening dog walks, I've been inside - so I've had a chance to listen to entire albums by the subjects of this installment of the "indiepop a to z" series.  It's been fun - it's such a diverse & interesting genre of music, one that for the most part is more obscure now than even when it was the opposite of punk in the mid-1980s.

Well, maybe not the opposite of punk - the do-it-your-own-damn-self aesthetic was there.  Among other things.  I'm not in the mood to theorize right now - & anyway, I'm reading Jon Savage's Sex Pistols book right now, so it's probably muddling up my thinking.

I'm in the letter J at this point, & it's the tenth letter of the alphabet.  If it takes forty-five shows to make it to J, where will I be at the twentieth letter of the alphabet (the letter T, right)?  & if I only do three of these shows a year, it'll happen well over a decade from now.  Will there even be radio then?  Will I even be alive?

Oh well.  Keep going, keep going.  The letter J.  Lots of good stuff.  I'll show you on Friday!

This Is One Of Those Times

…when you find something that would've been perfect for last week's show.

So you show it anyway.

Woke Up Early One Morning Blues, Episode Fourteen

Victoria Spivey

As mentioned previously, this was the last episode of my little blues show - at least for a while.  Lots of folks - students, mainly - return to Lexington for school in the Fall & of course they deserve a place at the student radio station.  I feel lucky I got to keep my Friday morning!  I can only imagine everyone else wanted to sleep in &/or had an eight o'clock class.

My last show featured some Texas blues greats, with an especial set on Texas blues women, & a few obscure tunes as well.  It may be because I am Texan that I love Texas blues so much - but I am surely not the only one.  It could be the subject of an entire ongoing radio program - & probably has.

This final Woke Up Early One Morning Blues (I'm glad no one complained about the clunky name!) is available now at the Self Help Radio website.  Pay attention to username/password information.  The Texas-flavored songs I played are below.

Thanks to everyone who listened this summer!

"Bull-Doze Blues" Henry Thomas _Texas Worried Blues (Complete Recorded Works 1927-1929)_
"Falling Rain Blues" Lonnie Johnson _Lonnie Johnson Vol. 1 (1925-1926)_
"Booster Blues" Blind Lemon Jefferson _The Best Of Blind Lemon Jefferson_

"Motherless Children Have A Hard Time" Blind Willie Johnson _Dark Was The Night  (1927-1930)_
"Texas Blues" Willie Reed _Let Me Tell You About The Blues Texas (The Evolution Of Texas Blues)_
"You'll Like My Loving" Otis Harris _The Male Blues Singers Vol. 1_
"Cryin' For You Blues" Sammy Hill _Texas Blues_
"Kentucky Blues" Little Hat Jones _Tex-Arkana-Louisiana Country 1929-1933_

"Big Houston Blues" Victoria Spivey _Victoria Spivey Vol. 1 1926-1927_
"Deep Water Blues" Hociel Thomas _Louis Armstrong & The Blues Singers_
"Doggone My Good Luck Soul" Hattie Hudson _Texas Girls (1926 - 1929)_
"Penitentiary" Bessie Tucker _I Can't Be Satisfied, Vol. 1_
"Shake It Down" Lillian Glinn _Lillian Glinn 1927-1929_

"Ground Hog Blues" Ramblin' Thomas _The Voice Of The Blues: Bottleneck Guitar Masterpieces_
"Blue Goose Blues" Jesse "Babyface" Thomas _Blues From The Western States 1927-1949_
"Lone Wolf Blues" Buddy Woods _Texas Slide Guitars 1930-1938_

Self Help Radio 082214: Bulls

Yup, the radio show today was about bulls.  Not papal bulls, not people who are confident in the stock market, not police officers.  The male version of cows.  Bulls.  Lots of songs about those kinds of bulls, & especially bullfighting & bull riding.  I even had guests to talk about it!

It's not available for you to listen to at Self Help Radio: the website.  Pay attention (if you go there to listen) to username + password information.  The songs I played are below.

Toro!  Toro!

(part one)

"The Bull Is Coming" Lee Fields & The Devil's Personal Band _Rare Funk Liberation_
"Ride The Bull" Quasimodo Jones _Robots & Rebels_
"Lezomkomo (Praise The Cows & Bulls)" Ladysmith Black Mambazo _Songs From A Zulu Farm_

"Little Black Bull" Pete Seeger _Sing With Seeger_
"Little White Bull" Tommy Steele _The Best Of Tommy Steele_
"Ferdinand The Bull" Slim & Slam _The Original 1938 Recordings, Vol. 1_
"El Toro De Goro (The Peace Loving Bull)" Sam The Sham & The Pharaohs _Li'l Red Riding Hood_

"The Cattle Call" Eddy Arnold _Heroes Of The Big Country_
"Bad Brahma Bull" Tex Ritter _Collectors Series_
"Oscar The Yodeling Bull" Peter Denahy _Peter Denahy_

"El Matador" The Kingston Trio _Sold Out_
"The Matador" Johnny Cash _Legend_
"The Matador" Major Lance _Best Of Soul Time: A Selection Of Northern Soul Classics From The Archives_

(part two)

"Old Bull" Wylie & The Wild West _Bucking Horse Moon_
"Bull In The Pen" Black Uhuru _Anthem_

"The Bullfighter Dies" Morrissey _World Peace Is None Of Your Business_
"The Bulls (Les Taureaux)" Shawn Elliott & Company _Jacques Brel Is Alive & Well & Living In Paris_
"Bull Rider" Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell _Old Yellow Moon_
"Bulls" Tania&Juan _Bulls_

"Bull In The Heather" The Go! Team _Proof Of Youth_
"Bullfighters' Bones" The Shrubs _Full Steam Into The Brainstorm 12"_
"Bullfighting" Airport Girl _Slow Light_
"Bullfighter Jacket" Miniature Tigers _Fortress_

"Cattle & Cane" The Go-Betweens _Before Hollywood_
"The Bull Run" Titus Turner _A Walk On The Wild Side_

Whither Bulls?

A long time ago, I was dating a girl, & she liked to go camping.  We would go camping together.  We knew someone who was a park ranger in Utah, so we'd go camping there.  I didn't own a car, so I'd rent a car, & we'd drive together from Austin to Utah to go camping.  Once, after driving forever on what was probably 183 past Llano - or maybe it was 290 west - or maybe it was I-10 on the way to El Paso, depending on how we were getting to wherever we were going - we stopped because she wanted to see some cows who were near the fence.  We pulled the car to the shoulder & walked over to say hello.  They were friendly & glad to have the company I supposed.

At some point some highway patrol officers appeareded & wanted to know what we were doing.  We said we were saying hello to the cows.  They told us we were on private property & needed to be moving along.  They seemed amused that we wanted to say hello to cows.  "You never seen cows before?" they asked us.

I hadn't grown up with cows but a couple of years before I had visited with other friends a dairy where the calves were very friendly & would suckle your fingers.  We slowly realized that it was kind of sad, since they wanted their mothers' milk, but the mothers were busy being milked to give to humans.

Anyway, when we were on the highway, walking back to the car, the highway patrol officers wondering if we were on drugs or something, I noticed that there was a lone bull in a separate section of the fenced-off land.  I guess if he were with the cows he'd be mating with them.  Or maybe he was a steer, a castrated bull, who was just separated from others I couldn't see.  Or maybe I just saw a cow I thought was a bull & made up an entire story from looking at him.  I do that.  You do that too.

I tried to find photos, using Google search, of handsome bulls, but all that comes up is pictures of pit bulls, who are dogs & not bulls at all.  (Some were quite handsome, though.)

The reason for the show is I wanted to play something from the new Morrissey record & I liked the song "The Bullfighter Dies."  I had to scramble to put the show together in less time than I usually take for my show.  I hope it's all right.

Tomorrow from 7 to 9am on 88.1 fm in Lexington, Kentucky, & online at the same time at wrfl dot fm.  I'll put the show up later in the day on the Self Help Radio website in case you can't wake up or won't wake up or read this years later.

It's years later.  I never stop to say hello to cows anymore.  But I do wave from the car.

Preface To Bulls: The Power Out

It has been a weird day.  I took a nap as is my wont & woke up, ready to make dinner, & there was a magnificent thunderstorm happening.  (I could've slept through it, but the wife woke me by saying, "Wake up & fix me dinner, depressed person!")  As I walked into the kitchen, everything in the house just stopped working.  At first, it seemed like there was still power, as the washer or dryer continued to spin even as it lost electricity.  But no, the whole house was off.

Here's the news, which I was able to access thanks to my smarty-pants phone: power outage story.

We decided to order out, but it took a while - probably a nearby cell phone tower was out or otherwise incapacitated.  We managed to call one of our few favorite local restaurants - the poorly named Asian Wind - & I ventured out into the world.

Two things first: our garage door opener is of course electric.  So I had to hold the door open as the wife drove the car out.

The other thing was Twitter.  When I finally got some bars, I checked the Twitterworld to see what folks were saying about the power outage.  What they said was, basically, DON'T GO DOWNTOWN.  Apparently students are moving in right now & the absence of power took out all the traffic lights.  Crash smash chaos.  But Lexington loves its sirens, & the power wasn't out for five minutes before we heard screaming sirens all around the city.

I didn't see any accidents, but I did see people being kind as traffic cops waved us through intersections without lights.  It wasn't much of a problem getting to the restaurant to pick up the food, but there was a problem with finding a place to park - lots of folks were escaping from their homes to go out to eat.

We watched old SCTV episodes on the computer while we ate by candlelight.

Which is all my way of saying that I meant to write something else but the world intervened.

I used to tell folks that big storms like we have in Texas don't really happen around here.  At least with the fierceness or regularity that is characteristic of Texas thunderstorms.  But I can't do that anymore.

Man, I am glad the power's back on.  It's sad, strange, & weird how our lives - or at least my life - needs its electronics.

Solidarity

Woke Up Early One Morning Blues, Episode Thirteen

Alger "Texas" Alexander

For my next-to-the-last episode of Woke Up Early One Morning Blues (next-to-the-last? what? see next paragraph!), I played some catch-up.  I would find so many songs to play for each show but couldn't fit them all in one hour, so this show contains songs that "belonged" to previous shows.  I still think there's a nice flow.

So next-to-last - well - the new WRFL schedule starts a week from today, & there'll be many more students back in town who need precious airtime, so I am losing an hour of my show.  That hour will be Woke Up Early One Morning Blues.  I am sad to see it go, but my focus has always been on Self Help Radio.  The show will reappear at some point - possibly next summer - because the early blues is always on my mind, & I enjoy doing a blues show.

You can listen to this past week's show now at the Self Help Radio website.  The mismatched collection of songs is listed below.

"Whiskey & Women" Black Ace _Texas Slide Guitars 1930-1938_
"Romance In The Dark" Lil Green _Romance In The Dark_
"Where He Leads Me I Will Follow" Blind Willie Harris _Goodbye, Babylon_

"Lonesome Lovesick Blues" Katherine Henderson _Vol. 2 (1927-1932)_
"Whiskey Headed Blues" Sonny Boy Williamson _Sonny Boy Williamson: Complete Recorded Works, 1938-1939_
"On My Way To Heaven" Blind Roy Hays _Sinners & Saints (1926-1931)_
"Snatch It Back Blues" Walter "Buddy Boy" Hawkins _William Harris & Buddy Boy Hawkins (1927-1929)_
"Black Gal, What Makes Your Head So Hard?" Joe Pullum _The Easin' In: Essential Recordings Of Texas Blues_

"Six Weeks Old Blues" John Henry Barbee _Memphis Blues 1927-1938_
"Lonesome Road Blues" Sam Collins _Before The Blues Vol. 1_
"Ain't Going To Lay My Armor Down" McVay & Johnson _Kentucky Mountain Music, Part 3_
"Friday Moan Blues" Alfred Lewis _Harmonica Blues 1920s & '30s_
"Boogie Woogie Stomp" Albert Ammons & His Rhythm Kings _The Many Faces Of Boogie Woogie_

"Dark Was The Night (Cold Was The Ground)" Blind Willie Johnson _Dark Was The Night (1927-1930)_
"Long Lonesome Day Blues" Texas Alexander _Texas Alexander Vol. 1 (1927-1928)_

Self Help Radio 081514: Normality

Who're you calling normal?  Not this radio show!  Oh, all right, just for today, Self Help Radio will be normal.  Why not?  Why not for once be a normal radio show?  I mean, really.

Show is here: Self Help Radio website.  Remember, if you have to have a username & a password, then SHR & selfhelp will probably work.  The songs played today are below.

Stay normal!

(part one)

"I'm Normal" The Emperor _I'm Normal_
"We Are Normal" The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band _Urban Spaceman_
"C'est Normal" Ceux Qui Marchent Debout _Handclapping Zone_

"Normal" Martin Mull _Normal_
"The Speed Of Normal" John Wesley Harding _John Wesley Harding's New Deal_
"Mr. Normal" Wayne County & The Electric Chairs _Man Enough To Be A Woman_

"Pronounced Normal" Wild Man Fischer _Pronounced Normal_
"Pass for Normal" Culturcide _Home-Made Authority_
"Normal People" The Members _The Choice Is Yours_
"Watch Out For The Normal People" The Boomtown Rats _A Tonic For The Troops_

"Dan Abnormal" Blur _The Great Escape_
"Crazy Kind Of Normal" The Rosehips _The Rosehips_

(part two)

"This Is The New Normal" Bubblegum Lemonade _Some Like It Pop_
"Every Boy Wants A Normal Girl" Colleen Green _Sock it To Me_
"Life Returns To Normal" Northern Portrait _Criminal Art Lovers_

"Suis-Je Normale?" Nini Raviolette _Change The Beat: The Celluloid Records Story 1979-1987_
"Total Normal" Eiskalte Engel _Total Normal_
"Normal" Astrud _Superman EP_

"The Normal Family" Andrei Codrescu _No Tacos For Saddam_
"Making People Normal" Bis _Social Dancing_
"Normal" Screaming Females _Castle Talk_
"Normality" Tania&Juan _Normality_

"Gillian Is Normal" Instant Automatons _Messthetics Greatest Hiss # 110: An Introduction To The D.I.Y. Cassette Scene 1979-1984_
"Tight But Normal Squeeze" Robert Pollard _Jack Sells A Cow_
"Normal" Bel Divioleta _Espejos_

Whither Normality?

I have no idea what normal is.  Normal is relative, anyway.  Some people live in fear & hunger, & that's normal for them.  What was normal even a century ago would seem weird to us now - & vice versa.

I do know that WRFL is not a normal radio station.  I don't mean that as an insult, but as a compliment. Every other radio station in the world - or I should say, the vast majority of them - are owned by one of two or three corporations, & they're programmed by a few people in one place, & piped out to each station. It's apparently very profitable for them, but it's such a depressing & cynical way to use the airwaves that could be filled with so much creativity & good music & fun.  It's why a station like WRFL is so valuable.

Will Self Help Radio celebrate normality, or will it (as you probably suspect) have several songs snarkily suggesting that what is normal is dull, mindless, hypnotized, brainwashed, conservative, square?  You'll have to listen to find out.

It's on tomorrow morning from 7am to 9am on 88.1 fm in Lexington, & online at wrfl dot fm.  Of course I'll do what I normally do & put it on the Self Help Radio website after the show, if you're not normally up that early.

It's normal for me to hope you'll listen, right?

Preface To Normality: Normalcy

You can read about Warren Harding's use of the word "normalcy" in his 1920 election campaign.  Though detractors at the time believed he made the word up, or mispronounced "normality," it turns out "normalcy" had been in use for around sixty years before that.  People use it to mean "normality" to this day, probably because of the hubbub surrounding Harding's use of the term.

But according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word normalcy was coined by mathematicians, first recorded in 1857, & used to mean a "mathematical condition of being at right angles."  It notes, wryly, "The word prefered by purists for 'a normal situation' is normality," which, it notes was first recorded in 1849 - barely a decade before "normalcy" was recorded.  Etymologists believe it came from the French.

I don't have a dog in this fight.  I like that the English language is elastic & mutable & I love that words change their meanings over periods of time.  It's sometimes sad when words like "literally" come to mean their opposite because of people who don't really know the word's definition, but if I don't mind a word like "normalcy" being used to mean "normality," I can't complain about changes in the language I don't like.  It's better than the opposite: word stagnation.

Harding, by the way, is known as one of the most corrupt presidents in history.  That might not be entirely true - but he did seem to surround himself (mostly friends & contributors from Ohio) with awful people.  For no real reason, here's a picture of him:

Woke Up Early One Morning Blues, Episode Twelve

Gladys Bentley

I loved encyclopedias as a child, & I have a mind that loves to categorize & alphabetize.  This week's episode of Woke Up Early One Morning Blues starts something I might never finish - a list of the great female blues singers of the 20s & 30s.  When people think of the blues, they often don't think of these women - but they were among the most popular blues performers of the time.  I go from Ora Alexander to Susie Edwards (of Butterbeans & Susie) on this show, but since I only have two more episodes of the show, I might not return to the list for a good long while.

In any event, you can listen to the show at the Self Help Radio website.  Pay attention to the password info there.  & enjoy the songs I played, which are listed below:

"You've Got To Save That Thing" Ora Alexander _Them Dirty Blues_
"St. Louis Blues" Mildred Bailey _The Ladies In Blues_
"Don't You Make Me High" Blue Lu Barker _The Chronological Classics: Blue Lu Barker 1938-1939_

"Worried Blues" Gladys Bentley _Maggie Jones & Gladys Bentley: Complete Recorded Works In Chronological Order Vol. 2 - May 1925 To June 1926 & August 1928 To March 1929_
"West Indies Blues" Esther Bigeou _Esther Bigeou (1921-1923)_
"The Pawn Shop Blues" Lucille Bogan _Lucille Bogan (Bessie Jackson) Vol. 1: 1923-1930_
"Evil Mama Blues" Ada Brown _Territory Singers Vol. 1 (1922-1928)_
"Song From A Cotton Field" Bessie Brown _Down In The Basement: Joe Bussard's Treasure Trove Of Vintage 78s: 1926-1937_

"Peddlin' Man" Liza Brown _(Original) Bessie Brown (1925-1929) & Liza Brown (1929)_
"Mean Eyes (Too Late Blues)" Kitty Brown _Female Blues Singers Vol. 3 (1923-1928)_
"Aunt Hagar's Children Blues" Alice Leslie Carter _Female Blues Singers Vol. 4 (1921-1930)_
"Everybody Does It Now" Martha Copeland _I Can't Be Satisfied, Vol. 2_
"Give Me A Break Blues" Ida Cox _The Blues 1923 To 1933_

"Blind Man Blues" Katie Crippen _Fletcher Henderson & The Blues Singers Vol. 1 (1921-1923)_
"Winter Blues" Madlyn Davis _Paramount Jazz_
"He Likes It Slow" Butterbeans & Susie _Louis Armstrong & The Blues Singers_

Come In, Orson

Words fail.  Words are all we have.

As a child, I was a huge comic book nerd.  I read them & re-read them all the time.  I loved reading other things, but comics were the first thing I read, & I loved them so much I would read them most - even the ones, like war comics, I wasn't terribly interested in.

I loved when things comic-book-y showed up in places other than those little booklets.  I loved Star Wars - a comic book movie if there ever was one.  I loved Star Trek - each episode like a different issue, with recurring villains, revisited plotlines.  & I even loved the silly stuff - like an alien showing up in a television show (Happy Days, of all places) & then getting his own show.

That's the first time I saw Robin Williams, & he made me laugh.  Laugh, laugh, laugh.  Later, in films like Dead Poets Society & Good Will Hunting, he showed a depth that his manic stage persona (his real persona?) didn't hint at.  He seemed human, humble, ridiculous, wise, caring, strong, & devoutly strange.  A comic book character come to life.

Of course, he was more than that, he was like me & you (or at least like you - I could never hope to be so talented), he had problems.  More information will come out in the next few days, but for now I'm going to spend the evening watching YouTube clips & laughing.  Laughing because Robin Williams was really so goddamned funny.

"Mork calling Orson, come in, Orson.  Come in, the Incredible Bulk."  He couldn't help constantly making fat jokes to his space superior.  Oh god, so funny.

Self Help Radio 080814: Acid

Self Help Radio played lots of songs about acid on this show, & by a wide margin (18 out of 26) the songs were definitely about Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, or LSD.  Partially it's a result of rock & rollers being part of the counter-culture that would be attracted to such things, but also I think it's a result of a lack of imagination on the part of musicians.  If the best song about acid rain is REM's "Fall On Me," well, there's a crisis of creativity.

Oh well.  Please enjoy a large number of songs about the kind of acid you watched afterschool specials about.  It's available now at the Self Help Radio website. I remind you of username + password, which equals SHR + selfhelp.  The songs I played around below.

Enjoy!

(part one)

"LSD" The Pretty Things _Get The Picture?_
"Acid (Another Colored Ink Drawing)" The Wild Things _Acid (Another Colored Ink Drawing)_
"I Wanna Come Back (From The World Of LSD)" The Fe-Fi-Four + 2 _Pebbles Vol. 5_
"Acid" Stu Mitchell _Only In America_

"Acid Face Baby" Rote Kapelle _It Moves... But Does It Swing?_
"Acid Bird (live)" Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians _Gotta Let This Hen Out!_
"Acid To My Alkaline" Fujiya & Miyagi _Artificial Sweeteners_
"Acid Baby" Tania & Juan _Acid Baby_

"I Did Acid With Caroline" Jad Fair & Daniel Johnston _It's Spooky_
"Should Have Taken Acid With You" Neon Indian _Psychic Chasms_
"Lysergic Bliss" Of Montreal _Satanic Panic In The Attic_
"LSD" The Mighty Diamonds _Trinity Meet The Mighty Diamonds_

"Battery Acid" Baxendale _You Will Have Your Revenge_
"Adult Acid" Thee Oh Sees _The Master's Bedroom Is Worth Spending A Night In_

(part two)

"Acid Bath" The Hangmen _This Is Psychobilly: 25 Years Of Rockin' & Wreckin'_
"Acid Head" The Velvet Illusions _Acid Head_
"Acid Lady" The San Francisco T.K.O.'s _Bay Area Funk: Funk & Soul Essentials From San Francisco, Oakland, & The Bay Area 1967-1976, Vol. 2_

"Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" Der Expander Des Fortschritts _Celebrating The Eggman: A Tribute To John Lennon_
"Purple Haze" Johnny Jones & The King Casuals _Atlanta Soul: The Peachtree Records Story_
"White Rabbit" Born For Bliss _Flowing With The Flue_

"Too Much Acid" The Pineapples From The Dawn Of Time _Behind The Banana Curtain_
"The Last Time I Did Acid I Went Insane" Jeffrey Lewis _The Last Time I Did Acid I Went Insane & Other Favorites_
"Somebody Spiked My L.S.D." Julian Cope _Floored Genius 4: Brain Donor_
"LSD" Wendall Austin & The Country Swings _Wavy Gravy, Vol. 1: For Adult Enthusiasts_

"The Trip" Kim Fowley _Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era, Vol. 2_
"Acid Revolution" Rob Jo Star Band _Soul Jazz Records Presents PUNK 45: Sick On You! One Way Spit! After The Love & Before The Revolution: Proto-Punk 1969-77_

Whither Acid?

It's been so long since I've taken acid that I can't believe I ever did.  Also, thinking about it makes me wish I could do it again.  Why aren't all drugs legal?  Oh yeah, because our society shows no interest in taking care of any of its citizens; the idea of caring for the inevitable needs of people lost to drugs the government was legally responsible for selling is beyond their narrow, thin, empathy envelope.

The show tomorrow won't talk about my experiences with LSD, but there'll be songs about it.  Also, songs about battery acid, & acid's relationship to alkaline, & other non-drug-related tunes.  But, alas, it's rock & roll, so there'll be a lot of songs about the drug called acid.

Tune in, tune out, etc., from 7 am to 9 am tomorrow on 88.1 fm WRFL Lexington or hey! online at wrfl dot fm.  I'll put on the SHR website later, but of course by then it might
be a little diluted.

If that can happen with acid.  How would I know?  It's been so long!

Preface To Acid: Trip Advisor

I have a Self Help Radio Facebook page.  Mainly I post playlists there & occasionally pictures of bears.  More people "see" it than this page because they can "like" it & my nonsense shows up in their "feed."  But while it can be much more interactive than this stumpy little blog, it rarely is, because I don't really know how to make it so.  The last time I asked an honest question of my "likes," the idea being that I would use the information to talk about on the show, my smart-ass friends (who make up the bulk of the page's "likes," & who probably haven't listened to my show in forever, if ever) thought I was giving them an opportunity to be "funny" (not funny for real, because this is Facebook), & they made smart-ass remarks.

This morning I was thinking, "Hey! I'll ask a question that some people might answer on the Facebook page!" Here was the question that I thought I might ask, or something like it anyway: "If you've taken LSD, please share your best trip below!"

About two seconds after I thought of that question, I asked myself a question, which was this: "Are you high?"

Facebook - & especially "liked" pages like mine - does not have the same anonymity as some places where users can comment (& be total dicks) to their heart's content behind a fake username.  You sign in mostly as you (or the online you you've constructed, which often has your real name), & your responses are as that you.  Asking people to admit to using an illegal drug - never mind asking them to describe its use - is stupid, & possibly could get them in trouble with employers & other humorless folks down the line.

I could ask people to do so here, where they can comment anonymously, but no one really sees this blog.  Certainly people don't visit here daily.  (I think fewer people see this than my silly Tumblr blog.)  I wouldn't have enough responses to talk about on the show.

But, really, just thinking about this whole process - me considering asking people to fess up on Facebook their drug tales - I just have to ask, "What's wrong with me?"

One More Thing About "Woke Up Early One Morning Blues"

I guess this is sort of a public service announcement to folks to who listen to my pre-war blues show called "Woke Up Early One Morning Blues," which I have been doing all summer on WRFL.  I was fortunate enough to do the show this summer because I was given a three-hour timeslot, which was the result of a lot of programmers going away for the summer.  The understanding was that, when the (mainly student) horde returned, I would have the show trimmed to two hours, the time which most programmers have, & I don't want to lose a whole hour of Self Help Radio, which is the show I most enjoy doing.

The new schedule at WRFL begins August 25, which means I have only three episodes of WUEOMB left.  Ugh, that looks terrible.  There are times when an acronym is completely inappropriate.  My too-wordy-show-name is one of them.

I have only three episodes of Woke Up Early One Morning Blues left.  Is there anything you've been wanting to hear me explore?  Let me know!  & soon!

Woke Up Early One Morning Blues, Episode Eleven

Peetie Wheatstraw

Episode number eleven of the blues show Woke Up Early One Morning Blues is now available for listening when & if you choose.  It features lots of early blues about that distilled alcoholic drink that George Bernard Shaw called "liquid sunshine": whiskey.

The show is available at Self Help Radio on the web.  The songs I played are below.  Please enjoy this show responsibly.

"Whiskey Man Blues" Scrapper Blackwell & Black Bottom McPhail _Virtuoso Guitar 1925-1934_

"Whiskey & Gin Blues" South Street Trio _Country Blues Outlaws_

"Whiskey Blues" Elzadie Robinson _Elzadie Robinson Vol. 1 1926-1928_

"Me & My Whiskey" Barbecue Bob _The Complete Recorded Works In Chronological Order, Vol. 2_

"Whiskey Moan Blues" Clifford Gibson _Clifford Gibson (1929-1931)_

"Whiskey Drinkin' Blues" Tampa Red with Jenny Pope _Tampa Red Vol. 3 (1929-1930)_

"Whiskey Selling Women" Lucille Bogan _Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 1 (1923-1930)_

"If The River Was Whiskey" Charlie Poole _Old Time Songs 1926-1930, Vol. 2_

"Whiskeyhead Blues" JT "Funny Paper" Smith _Complete Recordings (1930-1931)_

"Try My Whiskey Blues" Roosevelt Sykes _Roosevelt Sykes Vol. 3 (1931-1933)_

"More Good Whiskey Blues" Peetie Wheatstraw _Peetie Wheatstraw, Vol. 2: 1934-1935_

"Bad Whiskey Blues" Black Boy Shine _Leroy Carr & Black Boy Shine (1934-1937)_

"Rye Whiskey" Tex Ritter _The History Of Country & Western Music Vol. 4 (1931-1934)_

"Whiskey Blues" Bo Carter _Bo Carter Vol. 4 (1936-1938)_

"Whiskey & Good Time Blues" Big Bill Broonzy _Big Bill Broonzy Vol. 8 1938-1939_

"Whiskey Fool" The Yas Yas Girl (Merline Johnson) _The Yas Yas Girl (Merline Johnson) Vol. 2 1938-1939_